Revelation 18:20

This verse interrupts the sequence of 19 and 21 in which the ruin of Rome is illustrated by the dramatic action of the angel. The awkward shift from description to an apostrophe, and the evidently Christian tone of the cry, betray an editor's hand. His object is to render explicit the moral reasons why Christians should delight in the downfall of the city. He writes in the same triple rhythm as the source, and his hand is to be seen in the whole verse not simply in καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι. The voice from heaven is thus made to pass into a closing apostrophe to heaven and its inhabitants (cf. Revelation 11:18), imitated from Jeremiah 51:48 (Heb.). John seems to assume that all had a case against Rome as victims of her cruelty, probably in the main as martyrs and confessors. “Apostles,” omitted in Revelation 18:24, has here (as in Revelation 2:2) its wider sense (otherwise Revelation 21:14), but it must include Peter and Paul (Zahn, Einleit. § 39, n. 4). ὅτι κ. τ. λ. = “for God has judged her with your judgment,” i.e., vindicated you (done you justice, given you your due) by lexacting vengeance upon her. She who once doomed you is now doomed herself (cf. Revelation 16:6). εὐφραίνου. Cf. En. lxii., where the kings and rulers condemned by messiah to eternal torment are to be “a spectacle for the righteous and his elect; they will rejoice over them because the wrath of the Lord of spirits resteth upon them, and his sword is drunk with their blood”; also Isaiah 30:29, for the call to exult over a fallen oppressor. A Parisian workman, who was looking down at the corpse of Robespierre, was overheard to mutter, with relief, “Oui, il y a un Dieu”.